I received a problem book, marked it RWAP and PMed the member and explained the problem, and also requested my credit to be refunded. That was last Friday. I asked that she respond to me by Wednesday, which was yesterday. I did not hear from her. I do know that she read my PM. So I sent a second PM this morning, and told her that as I am leaving to go on vacation this weekend, I would like a response before then, or I will mark the transaction as unresolved.

I have never had to mark a transaction unresolved before, so am curious what happens after that, especially since this member has been unresponsive. The Help Center says that members are expected to respond to communications from other members about transactions, and says that if they refuse to respond, that will be taken as an admission of guilt on their part, etc. My question is, do I need to manually send a message to the PBS Team about this, or is there some way to notify them about an unresponsive member during the process of marking the transaction unresolved? I am hoping that the member will resolve this, but in case she does not, I would like to know in advance what I should do, since I will be leaving to go out of town and wont' have time to figure it out later.

You do not need to send another PM to the PBS team or anything...if you have marked the transaction unresolved, that "sticks" to the person's account so if it happens again, the system will know. Problem accounts are flagged--I don't know exactly how many times this has to happen before the account is flagged or held, but I'm assuming it wouldn't take too many problem transactions before the system brings the account to the attention of the team.

Well, here's what I'm wondering though...this is from the Help Center:

If you don't respond to the requestor about the problem within a week, we may step in - although we cannot assess the truth of a situation, if one member is refusing to communicate with the other, that member may be judged as "in the wrong" for this reason and non-response will be taken as admission of fault on the part of the sender.

So how will PBS know that they were unresponsive to my communications? I know how accounts get flagged and all of that, but what I most want addressed is the unresponsiveness of the member. Marking a transaction as unresolved could mean either the member responded but disagreed with the receiver and chose not to resolve the issue, or that they did nothing. So how does PBS have record of not only the problem transaction, but the fact that they failed to respond?

Since they did not respond, you will want to chose that option, not the option that they did not resolve the problem. That will notify the site that they have been unresponsive.

Follow-up on Problem swaps

added 3/13/2008

If you as the requestor marked a book received with a problem, you can now provide follow-up on the situation from your Transaction Archive.

This will allow us to screen more effectively for those accounts that are sending problem books and NOT resolving the problems, and also allow us to avoid excessively penalizing senders who might make a mistake, but who do resolve the problem.

Senders who send problem books and do not resolve the problem will have their accounts double-marked "behind the scenes"; if a pattern of this emerges on a sender's account, it will jeopardize membership .

Before submitting follow-up on a problem swap:

You must have sent a PM to the sender, clearly asking for a response (and a credit refund if that is desired)

You can send the PM during the process of marking the book received, OR using the PM button on the swap in your transaction archive as described in How do I contact another member?.

You should allow the sender a week at least to respond to your PM and resolve the swap.

You should check the member's bookshelf (by clicking his or her highlighted name on the swap, which will take you to his or her bookshelf or profile, where you can click the Books button) to see if his or her account is on vacation. If the account continues to be on vacation for more than a week, you can contact us to find out when you might expect a response from the requestor.

To give follow-up on a Problem Swap:

Find the problem transaction in your Transaction Archive (linked from the top of your My Account main page)

Click

this button appears only on the requestor's account

Choose one of the options given in the menu next to Update Status

Sender resolved the problem

Sender did NOT resolve the problem

Sender did not respond to PM asking to discuss the problem

Marked problem swap in error

Click Submit to submit the follow-up information

What the options mean

Sender resolved the problem means the swap does not need to be resolved further

the resolution could have been that the sender refunded the credit

the resolution could have been that the sender sent another book as replacement

the resolution could have been that the sender offered resolution, but you declined

Sender did NOT resolve the problem means that the sender responded to your PM, but did not settle this swap to your satisfaction, and there is no further negotiation happening

this could be because you disagreed about a book's condition

this could be because you did not like the resolution that she or he offered

this could be because the sender refused to refund credit or replace the book (or promised to replace the book or refund the credit, but book/refund was not received)

Sender did not respond to PM means that your PM asked for a response, but the sender did not respond

You should not choose this option if the sender responded (even if you don't agree with what the sender said)

You should not choose this option if your PM did not ask for a response

You should not choose this option if you never sent the sender a PM at all

Marked as problem swap in error means that you made a mistake when you marked it as a problem swap

Choose this option if there was actually no problem with the transaction

What happens when you submit follow-up

Sender resolved the problem

this removes the "Was Problem Resolved?" button from the transaction

this does NOT change the problem icon in the Transaction Archive

Adds the notation that the problem was resolved to the Transaction Archive

this text appears on both sender 's and requestor's transaction archives

Changes the swap status "behind-the-scenes" so that this problem swap does not count as heavily against the sender as an unresolved problem

Sender did NOT resolve the problem

this removes the "Was Problem Resolved?" button from the transaction

does NOT change the problem icon in the Transaction Archive

Adds the notation that the problem was NOT resolved to the Transaction Archive

this text appears on both sender 's and requestor's transaction archives

Adds a "double mark" against the sender in his or her account record "behind the scenes"

Sender did not respond to PM

this sends an email to the sender, notifying him or her that his or her account has been marked as nonresponsive in a problem swap

the email refers the member to the Help Center information about problem swaps, and tells the sender that he or she needs to resolve this problem

this does NOT change the problem icon in the Transaction Archive

this does NOT remove the "Was Problem Resolved?" button from the Transaction Archive (so that further follow-up can be given when/if the sender responds about this swap)

Marked received with a problem in error

this removes the "Was Problem Resolved?" button from the transaction

this changes the status of the transaction to "Completed Successfully" on both sender and requestor's transaction archives

Note that once follow-up is submitted, it can't be changed. The only follow-up option which allows further follow-up to be submitted is "Sender did not respond to PM".

Thank you Melanie- that is helpful. I completely missed that part of the Help Center. I did most of what it says, and by Saturday, which is when I have asked her again to respond, it will have been over a week. I did check to see if she was on vacation, and she is not.

I just went through a problem swap where the sender didn't respond to the PMs. I waited a week after the RWAP message was sent then sent a follow up PM asking if she read the first one. After several more days of no response I selected the "Sender did not respond to PMs" and by the end of the day she responded and refunded my credit. Then I was able to go back and mark the transaction resolved. TPTB must send a pretty strongly worded message to get such a quick response.

Well, this issue is still not resolved. I did mark the transaction as having no response from the sender, and a few days later I did hear from her. She said that the book was in good shape when she sent it, it was wrapped so as not to get wet, and she didn't know what I wanted her to do (even though I was very clear about what I wanted, which was my credit back). She also said that this was her first swap, and because of these problems, it would be her last, and she "knew it was too good to be true". I PMed back and told her that I hoped she would give PBS a chance, it's NOT too good to be true, but the posting rules have to be followed, and it may take some time to get used to the posting guidelines. I offered to send her pictures of the damage once I returned from vacation, and told her we could talk about where to go from there at that time. She did not respond to that PM, which was almost a week ago. I PMed her again this past Sunday with links to pictures of the damage and again reiterated that I would like my credit refunded, as well as my offer to return the book if she wanted to provide postage in the form of a credit or stamps. I asked to hear from her by this Friday, but as far as I can tell, neither this PM nor the previous one have even been read by her.

So, assuming I do no hear from her by Friday as I have asked, what do I do then? Since I have already marked the transaction RWAP and that the sender did not respond to PMs, should I contact PBS directly via the Contact Us link? Or, given the circumstances, would it be better to just mark it unresolved and let it go at that point?

I do feel it's a real shame that this member had a bad first swap experience and let it color her entire perception of the site, but I guess there is no way to force her to read my PMs or educate herself about how the site actually works. I have been very polite and accomodating with her, and have offered to help her understand the site rules, but she seems very defensive anyway. It makes me wonder about what kind of email PBS sends to members when they don't respond to PMs about a problem transaction- I know some of their correspondence is sometimes rather strictly worded. I just hate to see people have such a bad first experience. I realize I will probably never get my credit back, and have accepted that...I just feel badly that a new member has probably been lost due to a negative first experience.

Since she has responded to you there would be no reason to use the Contact Us at this point, they do not become involved in individual swap problems. Mark it as unresolved.

I wouldn't worry about the guilt trip she tried to lay on you. The bottom line is she didn't follow the rules and apparently doesn't want to be on the site if she has to follow them. The site doesn't need members who don't think the rules need to be followed and refuse to make the situation right when they are called on it. If she wants to be a good member she'll come back.

The bottom line is she didn't follow the rules and apparently doesn't want to be on the site if she has to follow them.

Exactly what I was thinking. If her first swap was such a disaster and she isn't interested in learning anything at all, I guess she's better off gone. She sent you an unpostable book, then threw a sob story at you about how mean the universe is to poor her, then speed-flounced. Really, who needs to relive middle school?

ETA, well never mind- the sender has offered to resolve the issue, although she does not have a credit to refund at this time. I have decided that I'm satisfied with her willingness to do the right thing, and told her I dont' need the credit back and marked it resolved. I don't think she was being a flake and choosing not to follow the rules- she's a brand new member and just didn't understand, and thought at first that I was out to scam her. Now that we understand each other, I'm satisfied enough to consider the matter resolved.

You might have just been had Lesley, but if it sounds like she has learned and that satisfies you, then that is good. She doesn't need to have a credit to refund the credit though. If she is at 0 credits, she can still go into her Transaction Archive and use the Refund Credit button, it will return the credit and take her to a -1.

That might be Melanie, but I'm ok with it. I think we can all use a break sometimes, especially as a new member just learning the ropes. I don't think it was a scam on her part, but if it was, I'm sure karma will catch up eventually. Honestly, I'm not in need of the credit- I always ask for a credit refund for RWAP on principle, but decided it's just not worth it this time.